There & Back Again

I've been posting pretty sporadically. Well, OK, I've been doing that for a while. Like a few years.

It's probably mirroring how up-and-down this relationship with this horse has gone. It's me, I know it's me, I've accepted it's me, and I take responsibility for the fact that she was not always like how she is today.

But, there's also been the exhausting amount of physical damage she seems to be able to sustain.

We were doing really well for a solid 2 months. Like, really well. It wasn't perfect, and I certainly ran into many, many occasions where I seriously doubted if I knew how to handle situations as they arose. But I've had amazing help from Trainer C, who is back in the picture and helping me get her going (again).

I mean, I got on her.

Like, sat on her back. In a saddle. And we walked around. And no one died. I may or may not have cried a little after, and my legs felt like jello for about 5 hours afterwards, but when your last ride on a horse resulted in your being thrown, and you have nursed said horse for 3 years, you'd be a bit emotional, too.

I'd been employing the Back on Track products (seriously, they should cut me a check every month for how much word of mouth advertising I do for them). Her hocks were looking great, she was moving nice and even, she was definitely muscle-sore but you could see changes in her haunches and back every week as she got stronger.

We had just started tack-walking when it happened.

It being that thing that every horse owner who is rehabbing a soft-tissue injuries worries about to the point of insomnia. It being re-injury.

It was stupid. It was a fluke, totally avoidable accident that didn't need to happen. But c'est la vie.

I've griped about it a lot IRL, so I won't go into full detail here. The short version is: farrier was injured, recommended another farrier to do Stella in her stead while she recovered. I took farrier's word: I trusted her judgement. I shouldn't have. I should have done my own research, asked around, asked more in general. New farrier came out, and I got an icky feeling in my gut. I should have trusted it. I didn't. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. It ended up costing me and Stella. Farrier made a rookie mistake after being given very clear instructions on how to handle the horse given her recent history, and caused her to tweak the RH to the point of re-injury.

So now, I once again have an unsound horse. A new u/s didn't show much: it actually showed quite a bit of improvement overall, but a dark spot on the very most proximal point, around where the original injury was, suggests newer damage. Basically, we're assuming, based on how she's moving and her previous history.

The amazing Dr. R, Lameness Specialist Extraordinaire, has suggested one month off and then reconvene. I'm giving her until the end of April before we do anything.

I've done a lot of soul-search in the past few months, and even moreso in the past few weeks. I'm ready to ride. I'm ready to put the work and effort it takes to make changes and get her back to a good place. We were doing the damn thing, for crying out loud! But what do I do if I'm faced, at the end of the this month, with a horse that is STILL not sound? It's been a year since the original injury, and I was SO careful with her rehab. Diagnostics to confirm she was healed, weeks of hand walking, the introduction of poles, slow tests of balance on a very large circle. I only took what she offered. We did the BoT boots, sheet nightly, careful stretching, gentle massage 3-4 times a week...

I'll admit, I'm fairly defeated. But I'm holding out hope for this little mare. She's rallied before, she can do it again...I think.

Damage in Pictures - Ultrasound

I always like actually being able to see what I'm dealing with. I wish I had x-ray vision, it'd surely be a lot cheaper.

Dr. R, arguably the best equine lameness diagnostician in Vermont, came out on February 5th to take images of both hocks and ultrasound the RH, which was the original injured leg. Stella had been at the new barn for a couple weeks by then, and was settling nicely into "doing stuff" that resembled rehab. She had been chiropracted by Dr. R the week before this visit, but something in my gut told me I really needed to see what exactly was going on in her joints, if not just to confirm that she was healed and ready for a job.

Glad I did.

The difference between the RH and LH suspensories is HUGE when you look at them together. For those who aren't savvy at reading u/s images, the first image is take looking at the back of her leg, u/s a few inches below the point of the hock. In the second and third, the images are flipped so the horse's leg is viewed as if it were horizontal.

I think the actual measurement difference between the two suspensories was almost 4mm. The LH measured something like 9.3mm, and if her RH had matched up approximately, there'd be no concern. But 4mm is a big difference, which indicates some kind of trauma. You can also see, in the first image, that it's enlarged: you also get the benefit there of seeing all the fuzzy grey, which is irregular scar tissue patterns, indicating it was injured but is now healed.

Yes, good news is, healed. Also good news, no lesions showed up in the u/s, which would make her chances of re-injury much higher.

Coming up: x-rays